Last November, I was Marshal in Charge at a rapier event, and I wanted a fancy garment to show that I was acting as a marshal. For years, I’d always heard the phrase “marshal tabard,” but I never wanted to wear a tabard. Then a member of my barony made a gorgeous marshalling German capelet,

This is a custom phone case I made on commission. I really enjoy making custom new pieces! The strap on the back is to thread onto a belt. This design is the heraldry for the Cavendish Knot, the first rapier award you can get in the Middle Kingdom in the Society for Creative Anachronism. The

Neck Coolers make awesome gifts, largesse, and site tokens for people in the SCA – or really, any other group that spends a lot of time outside in the hot summer sun, especially when mixed with exertion (armored combat, rapier combat, archery, equestrian, Habitat for Humanity/volunteering organizations…). What is a neck cooler? It’s a long

I’ve been using these as my rapier gloves for over four years now. In fact, these gloves are the very first piece of rapier gear I made. I didn’t realize that making your own gloves was odd until I showed up with them and everyone started oohing and aahing – it just seemed like a

I made the handle of my fencing dagger over a campfire at Pennsic, a two-week medieval camping event I go to every year. My campmates were thoroughly entertained. 🙂 The handle was made of many compressed leather discs. The first step was to soak leather scraps in beeswax. I bought beeswax at the Pennsic marketplace,

At Baron Wars this past summer I had a great discussion with our rapier general, Peter, on what is the best way to deny a flank. This is a tactic that occurs during line fights. Below is a picture of two lines fighting, orange versus green. The black markings are their swords, dagger, shields, and

In this post, I’m going to talk about a couple fun rapier melee games you can try with your fencers! Previously, I have talked a lot about the game Fox & Hound. This post explains King of the Throne and Bowser’s Castle. King of the Throne Optimal Number of Fencers: At least 20. If you

Medieval sword belts were often made with many buckles so that they could strap down onto different sword sheaths and be re-used (if you had to make everything from scratch, you’d make sure it could be re-used, too!). In the Society for Creative Anachronism, which does medieval recreation, many rapier fighters use this type of

I was at Baron Wars, an SCA event, in June this year. This is another great event for rapier melee – one of the best held near south-eastern Michigan all year, with about four dozen fencers fighting in the melee games in the morning. Baron Wars is held at Fort Meigs near Toledo, Ohio, and

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